Actually I mainly wrote that to get in the word curmudgeonly and yes I did have to spell check it.
But seriously I have been getting up in the morning to watch the Australian open tennis and oh dear the Eurosport coverage has left me floundering. I know keeping any sports programme going for hour after hour when there's no action going on is tough but these people really have plumbed new depths in banality.
They have this thing called the cube where former Swedish number one player Mats Wilander, former Brit number one Tim Henman and some random woman chew the cud, discuss the day's play and conduct interviews, many of which feature former Brit number one women's player Laura Robson.
Laura is usually out and about with some other tennis reporter who seems to go under the name of Buffy and who is actually Barbara Schett who is a former Austrian number one (lots of number ones here).
Buffy isn't a Vampire slayer but fancies herself as a real off the cuff fun type gal. So she goes off to sample Greek food because a Greek player has reached the semi-finals. One piece also featured her son trying out various food. Laura meanwhile interviews women players on such inciteful matters as how much they are missing their pets (quite a lot apparently), how important it is to have a camera in their home so that they can see their pets (very important apparently) and, shock horror, an admission that Laura is actually missing her own dog.
Then they send Laura out to Melbourne beach to try her hand at beach volleyball.
"I've had three hip surgeries so I won't be diving around," she tells us. Then she tells us something we already know as she talks to one of the organisers of beach volleyball in Melbourne.
"Hello Big Al," she says
"Hi I'm Big All," he replies. Not that this has been set-up of course. Big Al is obviously so named because he's tall. Big Al is very tall.
But wait, back in the cube they have John McEnroe on screen and they are asking him some serious questions. John Mac is talking about one of the American players who has a serious six pack. The girls are all in a flutter.
"Have you seen him take his shirt off?" asks Mac
"Yes we have," shout the girls.
The camera pans to the players' gym where said six packer in the form of Tommy Paul is wandering around the room receiving congratulations on beating another American who just happens to be sitting on an exercise bike with an strange grin on his face, trying to look as if he doesn't mind being beaten by six pack Tommy.
Then the moment we've all been waiting for - Tommy takes off his shirt. There are gasps in the Cube as if they had never seen a topless man before despite the fact that there were hundreds on Melbourne Beach earlier. Big Al did have a shirt on though.
John Mac ponders what Six Pack Tommy eats to get himself into such good shape.
Then the conversation goes up a notch.
"Have you ever had a burger named after you," Tim Henman asks Johnny MacEnroe.
"Yes he has," bursts in Swedish Mats gleefully. "Haven't you heard of a Big Mac."
There's riotous laughter all around which lasts for all of five seconds and they move onto something else.
Buffy is asked if she has seen one of the players and their coach around the arena.
"Yes they have both been around, thank God," comes the reply, which is probably not surprising as they are taking part in the tournament. Mind you one of the top women players states that she is trying to sharpen up her time keeping.
Eventually they all run our of interesting and quirky things to say and talk about and yes we actually get to view some tennis.
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Intolerance and frustration often go hand in hand and yesterday morning I spent well over three hours trying to sort out my finance from the scam and then trying to pay my credit card bill with a new card. That took about three phone calls. I had to give them my mother's maiden name, my one time passcode, my e-mail address, how my middle name is spelled and much more.
I had just sorted all that out when I was told that Hethersett Pantomime Group had sent me some photographs of their performance for my e-magazine. It was sent via some software and what did I have to get to access it - yes a one time passcode.
I suspect I'll soon need a one time passcode to get up in the mornings.
This nonsense has got so bad that yesterday I got a phone call asking to speak to my other threequarters. I handed the phone to her and she had to answer security questions to prove that she was who she said she was despite them ringing her number! They did stop short of sending her a one time passcode though.
And on a similar theme. I completed my annual tax return earlier this week. I received confirmation that it had been received. I then sent the tax I owed and received confirmation that this had been received. I even received an e mail from them telling me that unless my financial situation changes I do not need to file any more tax returns.
Guess what texts I am now receiving? Yes texts warning me that the deadline for tax returns is fast approaching and I need to send mine in asap.
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I have to say that once all that nonsense was over, the day did improve. As mentioned yesterday we went to listen to a centenarian talking about her life at Plumstead Road Library in Norwich.
Attached with this are a couple of photographs of Rose Melnyk who regaled us for over an hour with tales from her youth in Scotland and her years living in Norfolk.
The problem was Rose only covered a portion of her life and will have to come back to finish everything off by telling us about her husband, her children, her grandchildren and great grandchildren and more memories of Norfolk and Norwich at a later date.